Review of Pride FC 5 And 6

Introduction

This is another dip into the mixed martial arts archives for Silvervision, and another double-disc set to boot. This time around, we are treated to the Japanese Pride FC 5 & 6. The former was held on 28th April 1999 in Rainbow Hall in Nagoya, and the latter on 4th July 1999 in Yokohama Arena, Yokohama.

Video

Video is presented in standard 4:3 full screen PAL and, bizarrely, varies not only between these two shows, but during them as well. From the beginning, Pride 5 looks positively awful on DVD, to the point where I wondered if they had to make a DVD transfer from the VHS master. The wide shots in particular are gut-wrenching, but even though there is improvement in the in-ring shots, the image is remarkably soft and is not up to standard.

Things do improve as the show goes on however, and there is a slight upgrade in quality once we arrive at the semi-main event between Vitor Belfort and Kazushi Sakuraba. But please, do not expect anything like current Pride/UFC production values, as you will be very disappointed.

Pride 6 is again a noticeable improvement on its predecessor, although this is little in the way of compliment. Video quality still lags horribly behind anything recorded by Pride in 2005, and is not satisfactory for DVD. Softness of image is again the culprit, but it seems that given the source material, this may be the best that we will ever see Pride 5 & 6.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and is very average, even for a DVD set of this genre. This again appears to be due to lacklustre source material. Unlike future events, commentators "Fight Professor" Stephen Quadros and Bas Rutten are clearly not in attendance for the event, and the mood of the event suffers for that fact, as the commentary overdub overshadows the crowd somewhat.

Features

I am delighted to say that these retrospective Pride DVDs continue to have exactly the same set of extras. That might seem very odd, but whilst this therefore means that both Pride 5 & 6 have exactly the same extras on each disc, I believe that it is a good thing that the extras are there to give the viewer a deeper understand of Pride FC. As such, included is a short documentary "What is Pride FC?", a glossary of fight terms, rules of Pride FC, and a photo gallery.

It could be argued that long-term fans are left out in the cold by these extras, but with Pride 6 itself lasting 195mins, I feel there is little room for complaint.

Conclusion

So, with a horrid video image and a distinctly average audio production, does the in-ring action make up for it? Unfortunately, no.

The action on Pride 5 begins with a very average, one-sided match between Minoru Toronaga and Egan Inoue and does not get any better until the controversial (and again, extremely one-sided) bout between Belfort and Sakuraba. In between, there is simply not enough action to hold one`s attention, especially in Gracie ju-jitsu exhibition, which is played out to absolute silence from the Japanese crowd.

Pride 6 contains several very long matches where similarly, there is way too much stalling. Unusually, this includes Igor Vovchanchyn, whose bouts are usually much more exciting than the snorefest here with Carlos Barreto. Things do pick up however, and the matches involving Daijiro Matsui and Carlos Newton, Sakuraba and Ebenezer Fontes Braga, and Gary Goodridge and Naoya Ogawa are all good to very good - which I`m glad to report, since the main event featuring pro wrestler Nobuhiko Takada vs Mark Kerr is a complete mismatch and should never have been given main event status.

Overall, this 2-disc set is an interesting introduction to the world of Pride FC competition, but it would be a tragedy if a potential fan watched these events and thought that this was all that Pride (or MMA in general) had to offer. Therefore, I recommend this set for Pride fans who are interested in the history of the company, but compel new inquisitors to check out one of Pride`s more recent offerings.